


Why?

by peachbees



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: (i'm shocked that isn't a tag yet!), Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Pre-Star Wars: A New Hope, autistic luke skywalker, insecurities and validation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 00:39:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7955311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachbees/pseuds/peachbees
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, Biggs?”</p><p>“Yeah, kid?” </p><p>“Why…why do you love me?” </p><p>There was a pause.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Why?

**Author's Note:**

> this little ficlet was requested by my good friend, who sent a prompt to my tumblr (which is available on my profile, i'm still taking requests!), and it was nice to take a break from 'the fire's found a home in me' because chapter 2 of that has been a pain :/ 
> 
> but anyway, this is my first time writing biggs, so please let me know if there are any changes i can make to his characterization to make it more accurate or fluid. it's so tragique that most of his scenes in the movie got cut :( but he plays a bigger role in the anh novel, which i'm reading now. i'm also including instances of luke's canon autistic traits that i've come across in the book so far (i.e. hyper-empathy, struggling to understand the interests of others, issues with eye contact, trouble controlling his volume when he gets excited, and hand flapping). i'm autistic, so it's easy for me to see those traits in him! i also read that force sensitivity can be read as an allegory for autism, which is really great!
> 
> anyway, enjoy! :)

“Hey, Biggs?”

“Yeah, kid?” 

“Why…why do you love me?” 

There was a pause. 

“Why do I love you, huh?” Biggs asked, arms crossed as he leaned against the counter in the Lars’ garage, watching as Luke fiddled nervously with the left wing of his model skyhopper. Blue eyes glanced down at the slope of the wing, and hard teeth sunk into a pink lower lip. He looked so pure, so innocent, and so afraid of Biggs’ answer. 

“I mean,  you don’t have to say anything!” Luke blurted, suddenly, jerking forward and nearly dropping his skyhopper, “You don’t even have to say you love me or anything, I was just…it’s stupid. Never mind…” 

Biggs sighed. He pushed himself off of the wall and walked over to the table by Luke’s chair. He seated himself on it and crossed his ankles. Luke had ducked his head again, averting his eyes in that soft way he always did. Biggs figured that no matter what happened, Luke would always keep that wide-eyed wonder and that young, playful soul. Then again, the desert wasn’t exactly the place for extreme character development…but it didn’t always protect the beautiful things either. 

“Hey…” Biggs reached out and set his hand on Luke’s shoulder, pushing down and squeezing a little in the way he knew Luke liked. Just as he’d suspected, Luke’s shoulders dropped and the  tension bled out of his neck. He tilted his head upwards at Biggs anxiously, expectantly, and  Biggs couldn’t help but reach out and slide his fingers over his soft, round cheeks. Everything about Luke was…soft. Like a delicate-looking but strong-willed desert flower that had weathered storm after storm but still managed to be gentle and perfect. “I’ll tell you.” 

Just as he’d expected, Luke’s eyes widened and lit up. 

“You will?” he asked eagerly. 

“Yeah…yeah, I will.” It suddenly struck him that he’d never told Luke why he loved him before; he assumed that, like handshakes, it was something that they had moved beyond; he assumed that it was something Luke already knew. He knelt down by the chair, setting one hand on Luke’s cheek (which Luke immediately covered with his own, desperate to make the touch stay) and the other on his knee. “Look at me, kid…please?” 

Luke had always struggled with eye contact, the same way he struggled with tone, and loud noises, and staying focused. He always stared at the wall behind somebody, or the ceiling above them, or the ground beneath them. Sure, it was a little strange, and Deak always teased him about it, but it was just a part of what made Luke _Luke_. And Biggs loved him, loved all his little quirks; he loved that Luke always had to be chewing on something, or fiddling with something else, and he loved that Luke’s expressions were more exaggerated than others’, and he loved that Luke stammered whenever he got excited and his voice hitched up in volume, and he loved that whenever Luke spoke about something that interested him, his hands gestured wildly and made little flapping motions. 

These things weren’t flaws, they were just…unique little traits that made Luke pleasantly different from everyone else on this dustball. There was something else, too, something locked away and deep down that made him special. Biggs didn’t quite know what it was, but he knew it was there, and that it made Luke seem like the most important person in the universe, like a star waiting to shine, filled with potential. 

With a little bit of an anxious furrow of his brow, Luke managed to jerkily train his eyes on Biggs and keep them there. “Okay–I’m looking, see?” he asked eagerly, his smile warm and a little nervous, “I’m not gonna look away, either…! I’m gonna keep looking, I promise!” 

Biggs’ lips curved sideways and upwards, and he gave Luke’s soft cheek a little nudge, grinning only more widely when he laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Good job, Wormie.” 

Like his playful namesake, Luke went pink in the face and squirmed a little in his seat. “Biggs!” he whined, “Don’t call me that!” 

“Okay, okay,” he replied quietly, “No more of that. But if it’s any consolation, I think it’s cute.” 

Luke pouted and huffed. He dropped his head  down, pulling his eyes away from Biggs to focus on his fingers, which had begun playing with his sleeves again. “Deak just calls me that to make fun of me…I know I’m a little weird, and”–

“Not weird, kid. You’re special.” 

He rolled his eyes and sulked. “That’s just what Aunt Beru says to make me feel better…You don’t have to do it too…” 

Biggs pressed his thumb into that little dimple on Luke’s chin, gently nudging at his face a little to get him to look at him again, to show him those pretty blue eyes and that sweet face. “C’mon, you know I didn’t mean it like that…you _are_ special. I dunno what it is, but there’s somethin’ about you, Luke–somethin’ that doesn’t belong here on this rock.” 

“That’s what I keep saying!” he blurted, “I keep telling Uncle Owen I don’t belong here! But he keeps pulling my application season after season! I don’t wanna be here anymore, Biggs! I don’t wanna sit around like your stupid little army wife…I wanna be out there fighting…with you…” 

It was selfish of him, but Biggs didn’t want Luke to ever leave Tatooine. He wanted him to stay there, safe and tucked away in the sand, where this war couldn’t take him away. Where this was wouldn’t come and zap away everything innocent and idealistic about him. He wanted Luke to stay here, and he wanted to come home from the Resistance victorious and scoop him up, and build him a nice, big house, where maybe they could–

But Luke didn’t want that. Luke wanted to be in the stars, and Biggs knew that the stars wanted him to be there too, that they called to something deep and primal inside him that nobody else had. 

“You’ll get there,” Biggs promised, “And we’ll fly together, you and me.” They’d fly together like they used to, when they shot womp rats together with Deak and the other fellas from Torsche station, and they’d always make fun of Luke for hesitating to make the kill, or crying when he felt the animal die. Luke could pretend to be proud of shooting rats all he wanted, but at the end of the day, only Biggs knew how guilty he’d felt after, how sensitive he was to the life in every single thing. “C’mere…” 

Luke nearly fell out of the chair and into Biggs’ arms, wrapping his entire body around him. He pressed his face into Biggs’ shoulder and let out a little sigh when he felt the strong, familiar squeeze of his arms around him. “I love you, Biggs Darklighter,” he confessed quietly, just as shyly as he had when he was fifteen and staring up at the stars from the dunes as they laid together in the sand.

“I love you too,” Biggs promised, “I love you because of every tiny thing that…that makes  you who you are…everything about you. And I know there’s lots of things about yourself that you don’t know how to love yet, but I do. I love the stuff you don’t let anyone see because you’re embarrassed, and I love the things you don’t tell anyone about because you’re scared. I love that you care. I think that’s the problem with the universe. Nobody ever cares.” 

“Nobody helps each other,” Luke mumbled, and Biggs nodded, rubbing his back. 

“Nobody helps each other, but you wanna help everybody. And I love that. I love that you get real excited about stuff, more excited than anybody I’ve ever seen, like everything and everyone is special and important. And you see stuff in people that nobody else sees, even when they treat you like nothin’, you always see everything.” Luke saw the good in people, even ones who didn’t deserve it, and thought that if he opened himself up enough, if he gave as much love as he could, he could _make_ them good again. He made Biggs feel like the most important person in the universe sometimes. “You’re so good, Luke–and don’t you say nothing against it, because it’s true. You’re the best damn thing on this rock; everything else is dry and rotten, but not you.”

Biggs pulled back so he could see the brightness in Luke’s eyes and the flush on his cheeks…and his lovesick little smile. 

“Really?” he asked, “I don’t think everybody’s rotten, not even Deak or Uncle Owen…and the womp rats can be nice sometimes…” His eyes widened when Biggs laughed quietly. “What? What’d I say?” 

“Nothing, kid,” he replied, cupping Luke’s cheeks again, “It’s just…you kinda just proved my point about how _good_ you are. You’re good inside and out, and I love you, Luke. And I’m always gonna love you, to every moon and back, okay? No matter what happens, we’ve always got each other, right?” 

“We’ve always got each other,” Luke repeated with a tiny little smile. 

“Yeah…always got each other. Now lemme kiss that pretty face.” 

Luke wriggled and laughed as Biggs pressed his lips to every spot he could get to, pressing his nose against Luke’s cheeks as he kissed his jaw and his neck. 

“Quit it! That dumb mustache of yours tickles!” 

“Too bad,” Biggs mumbled, kissing Luke’s lips slowly and softly, feeling him still his wiggling and melt, “You’re stuck with me–and my dumb mustache–’till all the stars burn out.” 

Luke looked up at him and smiled so widely that his nose crinkled. “That’s a real long time.” 

Biggs kissed him again, and again, and again. And then he decided to kiss him again, just in case he missed a spot, and because he loved the pleased little sighs and soft giggles Luke gave him whenever he did. 

“Yeah,” he replied, “It is.” 


End file.
